the last defense minister was moved aside in the 1980s. he wanted to be the vice president, and he was not, and he was minister of defense. the regime never had any dealings with the opposition groups, the labor party and whatnot. they were just dcht have -- didn't have power and didn't have that relationship. whereas in yemen because the state is so weak, he always had contacts with other parties. >> do not exist in syria at all. >> no, there's no political parties there. you're not going to get anything. >> right. that would suggest it's going to be hard to do the deal. >> it's a negotiation between the regime and the west. the regime and the, you know, the rebel stand behind the west saying, yeah, okay, we'll do that, but, you know, the arab revolt, the arab spring, only in outside of syria, only in libya did we see violence. tunisia fell fairly quickly. the security forces didn't use violence against the protesters. just a few hundred died in egypt, and that was before the tanks were rolled out. yemen, he used violence as a tool to ext